Crass Spektakel

https://i.imgflip.com/703u8r.jpg I am from a different time when you had to build your router ALWAYS yourself or not have any router at all. My first router in 1994 was a 486@80Mhz with 2x100MBit Ethernet and six (!!!) RS232 connections running CSLIP at 115200bps because Ethernet back then was expensive and until 2015 all my routers were build by myself, running a heavily modified Debian and later Ubuntu. My last DIY router was a Core2 with 2x3600Mhz, 8GByte memory, Geforce 8800, 5x1000MBit, 5x3000GByte HD (RAID5). And here is the trick, it did the routing stuff as a side job. Its main job was being a decent server. Therefore it didn't matter how much power it draw. And honestly the server was MASSIVELY overpowered even though it ran SMB, SQL, Apache, Squid, Teamspeak and myriads other services. Oh, did I mention that I often logged locally into the system, working on two screens, coding stuff or playing Left4Dead? And still the VPN was working at full speed of the internet connection of 100MBit back then. Honestly for a mere router I would rather suggest using a Pi, not a PC. Most likely even a Pi Zero would do the trick. The presentation itself was fine. Not too much to get bored but enough to get the idea. And tbh I didn't even knew that OPNsense made it so far. But the overall idea of why to use an DIY router and the implications were done very poorly. Face it, a brand AIO SOHO router costs €50-€200 and uses 3-10 Watt. Separate the pieces (modem, switch, router, splitter etcpp) and you are closer to 30W - WITHOUT THE PC. To make matter worse, raw modems are usually as expensive as routers and need the same power and in many cases they ARE actually routers switched into modem mode. No joke. Using an old PC as a router is a VERY bad idea. But adding the feature to an existing Server, NAS or other appliance? Not a bad idea. In my case it was a simple script which made the PC into a full featured Router with excellent firewall - see attached file. That is actually the whole magic of a router and a firewall. And a pretty fast one too. packetfilter-example-20150514

Sorry for the necro but Skull Trail is just such an iconic item of the 2nd era of pc gaming I just have to step in. If you were short on money you could ditch the expensive 5400 board and the ludicrous expensive QX9775 cpus in favor of a 5000XVN board and Xeon 5420 cpus. Also this board was able to use cheaper memory as FBRAM@400Mhz was nearly twice as expensive as FBRAM@333Mhz and that one was also twice as expensive than normal memory back then. In 2008 I bought several of these machines for work and ended up using one of these at home after their retirement. A complete barebone (Case Enermax Bigchakra, PSU 600W Enermax, Board 5000XVN, 2xXeon 5420, 16GB memory, optical drive but without GFX and without drive as this was up to the users choice then) was only about €1500 back in 2008. Tyan featured a decently configurable board back then which you could use to overclock the FSB to 400Mhz and upping cpu clock to 3000Mhz. Never got one of these personally but people spoke well of it.

I got replies in other forums with stats from some Sony and Philips TVs from 2018-2019. One user got around 20fps in Asphalt 8 which was not fun to play - a racing game is depending on high fps more than any other software. On the other hand, Ashpalt is pretty much the worst case, the most demanding game on Android TV. WOT Blitz seemed to run reliably above around 30fps and due to slower gameplay feels overall nice. Small Games like Crossy Street, Mahjong, Frozen Bubble and OpenTTD are running perfectly. Well, they already run perfectly on a Pentium2@300Mhz so what. Emulations of older Computers usually work great. C64, Amiga, even DOS- and Win16-Games are running great, the Amiga-Emulation even was able to use a resolution of 3840x2160@60hz and access external Hard Drives and Internet Services on its own. I did a little comparison with my Atom Z8350 Convertible running Windows, downloaded Asphalt, WOT Blitz and some other Fremium from Microsoft Store. It seems this specific Atom is around twice as fast as the SOCs in these TVs. The FireTV-Stick with its 4xKrait@1300Mhz and its 2xA72@1700Mhz seems to be between these two and some newer and expensive TVs seem to offer even faster CPUs, e.g. 4xA72@1800Mhz. I would guess some titles are pretty playable. You just have to be picky. And there is practically no information to be found on the internet at all, you will not find something like "we tested Asphalt 9 on a Philips XYZ TV and got 1000fps". Nothing. You will easier find tests and reports about new games for the C64 than for Android TV. Still i have no feedback on other games. Especially War Thunder, Final Fantasies would be interesting.

I just had a crazy idea... my cousin plans on buying a news television. She also played video games from time to time but her Playstation 1 (!!!) recently broke and she doesn't want to spend several hundreds of bucks on a new system. Sooo... hows the state of affairs around gaming directly on an Television running Android? There are tons of tests around the NVidia Shield but that one is out of the question because its another piece of hardware, does cost several hundred Euros and is still inferior to a similiar priced XBOX or PS. I own a SmartTV from 2013 running Tizen/Meego but while it was one of the best SmartTV back then it always was a horrible gaming system. The few games available are lacking in every aspect, making a mere C64 standing out proud. There seem to be a ton of games for Android TV, I guess one third of the Top100 Steam games is also available for Android TV and most are free or fremium or very low cost even while versions for PC, PS, XBox are a lot more expensive. Asphalt, Fortnite, War Thunder, Kerbal, Final Fantasies 3 to 10, GTA3, Portal, Tropico, Galcon Fusion, Dungeon Defenders, Live is Strange, Galcon Fusion, Clicker Hero, Thimbleweed Park, Deponia, Sam and Max, some card games, Mahjong... from extreme high end gaming down to very simple games, just a lot of stuff for a very very casual gamer. Which of these are usable on a pure Android television without additional hardware is a total mystery for me. How crazy is this idea?